Gingrich Dips Toe in 2012 Waters

After stumbling over itself this week about whether it would or wouldn’t launch a presidential exploratory committee, the nascent quasi-campaign of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich announcing it was forming — drum roll — a website, Newt Explore 2012.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich speaks as his wife, Callista, looks on during a meeting with Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal in the governor’s office Thursday in Atlanta. (AP Photo/John Bazemore)

In talking to reporters in Atlanta Thursday, Mr. Gingrich said he wasn’t forming an actual exploratory committee, but was going to continue testing the waters in less formal ways.

“We will look at this very seriously and very methodically and lay out a framework for what we will do next,” he told reporters at a news conference in which he entertained just one question.

The website prominently features a button for donations, which go to a legal entity known as “Newt Exploratory 2012.”

The announcement sparked a quick flurry of sarcastic critiques on Twitter, with some commentators joking that Mr. Gingrich was creating a new campaign phase—the intent to possibly form an exploratory committee—and others commenting on the rudimentary nature of his new website. The site features a photo of a beaming Mr. Gingrich with his wife, Callista, superimposed over a crowd of smiling people waving flags.

In his Atlanta remarks, and in a radio interview earlier in the day, Mr. Gingrich mentioned his wife so often that pundits immediately began speculating, jokingly, that he might pick her as his running mate.

“A Note from Newt & Callista,” featured prominently on the website, laid out what might be the rudiments of a Gingrich campaign motto, even if it came off as a bit garbled: “We are a nation like no other. To remain so will require the dedicated participation of every citizen, of every neighborhood, of every background.”